Someone ruined the chance of the manga I'm working on being on the frontpage by making an early entry

[bondejeger]

So I started work on a manga couple of weeks ago, and there was already an entry made for it several months ago with no chapters released. So someone had created an entry without intention on working on the manga. I released the first chapter couple of weeks ago, but because someone made an entry such a long time ago, the manga can't be on the front page now over popular new titles because the early entry sabotaged it. The manga now has enough traffic and followers to be on the front page normally, but it has been ruined because of someone doing this entry early.

I think that it shouldn't be possible creating entries early by people not thinking of scanlating chapters, because it ruins and sabotages the effort of others later. It should only be possible creating entries by uploading a chapter. People who don't want competition can just create entries early like this to sabotage the chances of other works hitting the front page instead of theirs.

 

[dawg]

I think a simple solution instead would be to change "Popular New Titles" to "Trending Titles" (regardless of newness) so that titles that suddenly increased in popularity would show up there, even if the title's entry isn't new. making it "Trending" and not "Popular" would prevent titles that always get a lot of interactions from hogging the spotlight.

 

[RogueKitsune]

So someone had created an entry without intention on working on the manga.

I mean it could very well be that someone created with the intent of working on it, but then IRL stuff happened. Or maybe some poor soul wanted some group to pick up the series so made the title page to spread awareness of its existence.

the manga can't be on the front page now over popular new titles because the early entry sabotaged it

What? No one is sabotaging anything. If a group was working on this but in a different language than what you (or your group) is translating to the outcome would be the same.

People who don't want competition can just create entries early like this to sabotage the chances of other works hitting the front page instead of theirs.

Once again what? Thats not how this works. Its not how any of this works.

 

[bondejeger]

Or maybe some poor soul wanted some group to pick up the series so made the title page to spread awareness of its existence.

That would be a really, really, completely stupid thing to do, as creating an entry like that would ruin the chance of the manga reaching the front page. Which could also demotivate people from picking it up later.

I mean it could very well be that someone created with the intent of working on it, but then IRL stuff happened.

Then the requirement to upload a chapter to make an entry is completely reasonable, isn't it.

If a group was working on this but in a different language than what you (or your group) is translating to the outcome would be the same.

Of course it wouldn't, because then someone was working on it. Two completely different things.

Once again what? Thats not how this works. Its not how any of this works.

Why do you not think that creating entries like this wouldn't demotivate people from picking up series to scanlate? There is absolutely no reason for people to create entries early, people working on the series should be making them. In the end, making entries early regardless of the reason sabotages the chance of the manga making it to the front page later.

 

[bondejeger]

I think a simple solution instead would be to change "Popular New Titles" to "Trending Titles" (regardless of newness) so that titles that suddenly increased in popularity would show up there, even if the title's entry isn't new. making it "Trending" and not "Popular" would prevent titles that always get a lot of interactions from hogging the spotlight.

That's a different discussion though. But how the "popular new titles" is now, it really suffers from people creating early entries. And it most certainly demotivates people from picking up a manga, because it will have no chance to reach the "popular new titles" front page. People making entries early to get attention to their manga and get it picked up actually diminished the chance of it being picked up.

 

[RogueKitsune]

That would be a really, really, completely stupid thing to do, as creating an entry like that would ruin the chance of the manga reaching the front page. Which could also demotivate people from picking it up later.

If no one knows about it its not getting to the front page either. You really need to explain the demotivate part, I just don't get it.

Of course it wouldn't, because then someone was working on it. Two completely different things.

But it is the same thing as it won't reach the front page anymore "so no one else would ever want to work on it" per your argument.

Why do you not think that creating entries like this wouldn't demotivate people from picking up series to scanlate? There is absolutely no reason for people to create entries early, people working on the series should be making them. In the end, making entries early regardless of the reason sabotages the chance of the manga making it to the front page later.

Why would it demotivate people? Most people I know work on a series because they like it, other people liking it is just a bonus. Of course there are certain groups that are motivated solely by other things and need their releases to be seen by the most amount of people to extract the most satisfaction.

 

[bondejeger]

If no one knows about it its not getting to the front page either. You really need to explain the demotivate part, I just don't get it.

I didn't pick it up because of an entry, I was annoyed when I started working on it because someone had already made one and ruined the chances of it ever making the front page.

But it is the same thing as it won't reach the front page anymore "so no one else would ever want to work on it" per your argument.

Someone making an entry and not working on it, and someone making an entry and working on it in another language are two completely different things. Maybe it will decrease the chances of it making the front page, but the scanlator of another language didn't have a choice if he wanted to post it on mangadex. People making unceccessary entries don't have to make entries.

Why would it demotivate people? Most people I know work on a series because they like it, other people liking it is just a bonus. Of course there are certain groups that are motivated solely by other things and need their releases to be seen by the most amount of people to extract the most satisfaction.

I picked it up even if it had an entry, but it's really demotivating now to know it would've been on on "popular new titles" now if someone hadn't sabotaged it by making an entry early. I don't know if you know, but a manga that's on the front page of mangadex increases it's popularity and interest dramatically. It really sucks that it won't get out to more people because of some idiot making an entry early, and honestly it definitely harms the manga more than it helps.
I like the manga I work on and I'd like them to be read by as many as possible, you just reducing it to some stupid "clout" chase and that it's just for my satisfaction is just low. I'm also a bit old school and used to people doing scanlation because they wanted manga that wasn't available for overseas and to promote it and the artist, and not just for their own interest. Though I guess the scanlation scene is getting less and less of that way of thinking.

 

[SUPER7X]

I agree with you that the way things currently work is stupid. However, I completely disagree with you about the solution. I think the issue is that Popular New Titles is limited to entries made within the last month. It shouldn't be, as @dawg also suggests. The clock should start counting when a Chapter 1 in the user's selected language(s) is posted. I can imagine this would be difficult to implement, tho.
Alternatively, there shouldn't be a clock at all, tho that would be a different thing. I'm stealing from Fahim, but that would be “Newly Popular Titles”.
Also, view counts will change all of this soon(ish) anyway.

 

[bondejeger]

I agree with you that the way things currently work is stupid. However, I completely disagree with you about the solution. I think the issue is that Popular New Titles is limited to entries made within the last month. It shouldn't be, as @dawg also suggests. The clock should start counting when a Chapter 1 is posted. I'm stealing from @Fahim, but “Newly Popular Titles” would be much better.

Having it from the day the first chapter was posted would fix the issue yes, but then they'd have to change how the "popular new titles" work. The way it is now, making early entries completely ruins any chance for a manga with an early entry to make it to the "popular new titles". With the system now people who make early entries in the hope of making someone pick up a manga and making it popular in reality sabotages the manga, hindering people picking it up, and making it less likely to get popular.

 

[RogueKitsune]

I like the manga I work on and I'd like them to be read by as many as possible, you just reducing it to some stupid "clout" chase and that it's just for my satisfaction is just low.

You're right, I shouldn't have worded it that way. I apologise for that.

 

[SUPER7X]

Firstly, you responded before I'd finished editing my message, so just FYI.

Having it from the day the first chapter was posted would fix the issue yes, but then they'd have to change how the "popular new titles" work. The way it is now, making early entries completely ruins any chance for a manga with an early entry to make it to the "popular new titles". With the system now people who make early entries in the hope of making someone pick up a manga and making it popular in reality sabotages the manga, hindering people picking it up, and making it less likely to get popular.

Secondly, I think our main disagreement is about the usefulness of PNT. Maybe I'm overextrapolating from my own and others' lack of use of it, but I think our core disagreement is that I don't think it matters that much for its popularity if something appears on PNT. I think it's more that already popular and would-be popular things appear on PNT, rather than PNT spurring otherwize semipopular series into greater popularity. Tho, I certainly could be wrong about that. I dunno.

 

[bondejeger]

Firstly, you responded before I'd finished editing my message, so just FYI.

Secondly, I think our main disagreement is about the usefulness of PNT. Maybe I'm overextrapolating from my own and others' lack of use of it, but I think our core disagreement is that I don't think it matters that much for its popularity if something appears on PNT. I think it's more that already popular and would-be popular things appear on PNT, rather than PNT spurring otherwize semipopular series into greater popularity. Tho, I certainly could be wrong about that. I dunno.

It's different from manga to manga, but the number one now went from about 2000 followers to 28000 followers in a week. It's of course different from manga to manga, and they might have gotten popular regardless over time, but an early boost and hype like this definitely helps on popularity.
I think it could be better in other ways too, currently there's one artist that has three twitter shorts there. And when they first hit the front page, they gain so many followers that they'll stay there until the entry is one month old, keeping out other regular manga that would've fitted front page more and definitely would've been of more interest to people.

 

[Roler]

I think that it shouldn't be possible creating entries early by people not thinking of scanlating chapters

The biggest problem I see with your solution is that this change would require a redesign of the title creation system, because making it a simple rule would just turn into a complete moderation mess (all the reports for those old titles and keeping track of new ones, while also keeping in mind the titles with deleted chapters that might need to be restored in the future, readers reporting suddenly missing title pages, etc...)

Rather than wasting time working on something like that, I think it'd be best to focus on better discovery systems like the planned reimplementation of the v3 one.

Or maybe something cursed and simple as a temp fix, like auto-modifying the title creation date on first chapter upload
ok, that's maybe a bit too cursed, since it'll mess with other stuff

 

[Teasday]

I think the point being made here is fair enough. The list probably should count from the first upload, even if it ignored chapter language.

Unfortunately, with the current API, the title creation date is trivially easy and cheap to use for this purpose whereas the first upload date is just not available.

 

[AlexEliot]

Agree with Teas; this is a problem we should fix.

 

[bondejeger]

Thanks for looking at it. It's a bit frustrating.